Dynamic Environments and Health Behaviors in Midlife

Dynamic Environments and Health Behaviors

The objective of this study is to address misspecification of environmental exposures ubiquitous in prior research and provide a definitive test of activity-space environment explanations for between-and within-person daily and in-the-moment diet and physical activity variations during midlife. We hypothesize that (a) activity-space environmental exposures (e.g., healthful food availability, recreational resource availability) contribute to both between- and within-person variations in dietary and physical activity behaviors and more strongly influence these behaviors than residential neighborhood environments alone and (b) activity-space environmental exposures are more consequential for diet and physical activity when self-regulatory capacity—trait or state factors that affect a person’s ability to make efforts to regulate behavior—is diminished. We are using a rich combination of cutting-edge geographically-explicit ecological momentary assessment (GEMA) methodologies: global positioning system (GPS) location tracking; smartphone-based mini-surveys of state factors and behaviors; food images; and accelerometry, as well as multiple 24-hour dietary recalls to test these hypotheses.

This research is ongoing and funded by the National Institute on Aging (R01AG062180-01A1).